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The Bad Beginning
The Bad Beginning is the first of thirteen novels in American author Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. It was later released in paperback under the name The Bad Beginning; or, Orphans! The novel tells the story of three children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire, who are orphaned by an arsonous fire and sent to live with their distant and conniving cousin Count Olaf. The book was published on September 30, 1999 by HarperCollins and illustrated by Brett Helquist Plot The novel begins with a dedication to a mysterious Beatrice, whom Snicket describes as "darling, dearest, dead". The author then provides a brief explanation of why the book should not be read, before describing the series' protagonists: Violet Baudelaire, a 14-year old amateur inventor; Klaus Baudelaire, a 12-year-old bookworm; and Sunny Baudelaire, an infant with unusually powerful teeth. The Baudelaire children have left the unspecified city in which they live to spend the day at the deserted Briny Beach. While enjoying the solitude, their parents' inept banker, Arthur Poe, arrives to inform them that their mother and father have both died in a fire which has destroyed their mansion and all of their possessions. As executor of the Baudelaire estate, it is his duty to find a new home for the orphans. The Baudelaires briefly live with Mr. Poe and his wife, Polly, sharing a room with their ill-behaved children Edgar and Albert. All three Baudelaires are miserable and apathetic to their situation, but Mr. Poe soon informs them that, in accordance with their parent's will (which requests that the children be cared for "in the most convenient way possible"),1 he has located a distant cousin, Count Olaf, who lives within the city limits and is willing to become the children's legal guardian. On the car ride to Olaf's house, Mr. Poe explains to the Baudelaires that while Olaf is titularly a count, he is also a professional stage actor. When the car arrives in Olaf's neighborhood, the children are greeted by the kindly Justice Strauss, a judge on the High Court. When Violet mistakes her for Olaf's wife, however, Strauss hastily explains that she is only a neighbor, and directs the children and Mr. Poe to the squalid and betowered house that is Olaf's; carved on the front door is the image of a glaring eye. The children soon learn that Olaf has only accepted their guardianship under the mistaken belief that he will receive their vast inheritance (which has been set aside until Violet turns 18). Olaf is sinister, self-absorbed, and unhygienic; he bears a tattoo of the glaring eye on his left ankle and a distinctive unibrow. When the count learns that he will not receive the Baudelaire fortune, he immediately drops all pretenses of friendliness toward the children. Every day the count leaves to work with his theater troupe, posting a list of often demeaning chores which the children must perform before his return home. Although the house is spacious, the orphans are given only one room and one bed. They are strictly forbidden to enter Olaf's tower study, and are provided with no belongings. Eventually Olaf informs the children by way of the chore list that his 10-man theater troupe will be coming over in the evening, when the Baudelaires must serve dinner. Having no suitable supplies to make a meal for ten, the children spend the day with Justice Strauss shopping for ingredients to make spaghetti alla puttanesca and chocolate pudding. That evening Olaf arrives with his theater troupe, a motley crew which includes a man with hooks for hands, a bald man with a long nose, two women with white-powdered faces, and one who is so obese as to resemble neither a man nor a woman. The count and his troupe openly discuss his intentions to embezzle the children's inheritance, and Olaf becomes outraged when he learns the children have not prepared roast beef. When Klaus protests, Olaf slaps him and grabs Sunny, but calms down and allows the children to serve the puttanesca. The next day the Baudelaires set out to find Mr. Poe, who works at Mulctuary Money Management, and report Olaf's abuse. Poe explains that Olaf is acting in loco parentis, and can raise them as he sees fit. The next morning, Olaf stays late to speak with the Baudelaires. He explains that Mr. Poe called him to address the children's concerns, and that as a first-time parent, he has been uncertain how to connect with them. Olaf informs the children, to their dismay, that they will be performing with his theater troupe in their upcoming production The Marvelous Marriage. Convinced that the performance is a scheme to steal their fortune, Klaus spends the day researching inheritance law in Justice Strauss's personal library. His research is interrupted by the hook-handed man, however, who takes him back to Olaf's house. Klaus manages to grab a book on marriage law before he is taken away. During the night he discovers that a 14-year-old may get married with guardian consent, and realizes that Olaf plans to legally marry Violet in The Marvelous Marriage and in so doing form a concurrent estate, giving him unlimited access to their fortune. The next morning Klaus heads out early to confront Olaf with the evidence; the count confirms Klaus's theory and informs him that Sunny has been kidnapped on his behest and is being hung in a birdcage from the tower study window, to be dropped the moment he or his sister does not comply. That day Violet attempts to visit Sunny, but finds the door to the tower guarded by the associate who looks like neither a man nor a woman. During the night she builds a grappling hook to scale the tower. When she reaches the top, however, she is met by the hook-handed man, who locks her in the uppermost room of the tower and brings Klaus to join her. Together the three children wait out the night in anticipation of the Marvelous Marriage performance. The Marvelous Marriage itself serves little other purpose than as a vehicle for the wedding. Justice Strauss is procured for the role of the officiator (hence ensuring it is a legal ceremony), and Violet plays the role of the bride. Klaus is given a role with no lines, while Sunny remains locked in the birdcage under the hook-handed man's supervision. Every attempt the children make to speak to Strauss or Mr. Poe (who has come to see the performance) is interrupted by Olaf. When the time comes for Violet to sign the wedding contract, she makes a final effort to annul the marriage by signing the document with her left hand rather than her right. (The law required the document to be signed in the bride's "own hand".) As soon as the contract has been signed, Olaf announces that the performance is over, and that Violet is now legally his wife. Mr. Poe, Justice Strauss, and many audience members object, but finally Strauss concludes that the ceremony has been legal. To Olaf's dismay, however, Violet informs Strauss that she has signed the document with the wrong hand, and the judge agrees that this is not in compliance with the law, rendering the ceremony annulled. Olaf orders the hook-handed man to drop their infant sister, but Sunny and the assistant have already arrived onstage. Mr. Poe attempts to arrest Olaf, but one of the assistants turns the house lights off. In the darkness and ensuing confusion, only Violet in her white wedding gown is readily visible. Before he and his troupe escapes, Olaf finds Violet in the dark and promises her that he will get their fortune if it's the last thing he does. Once order is restored, Mr. Poe calls the police, but only Olaf's getaway car is found. Justice Strauss offers to adopt the Baudelaires, but Poe objects, observing that their parents' will instructs the children be raised by a relative. In compliance with the law, Strauss bids the children goodbye and leaves them in the care of Mr. Poe. Foreshadowing The Bad Beginning contains the first references to Beatrice and to the V.F.D. eye insignia, which later become major plot devices. The book also contains the first mention of the High Court, which is one of the primary instruments through which Olaf tracks the Baudelaire orphans' guardianships. On page 28, Snicket states, "Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time,"2 referring to the (false) possibility that Count Olaf is not a bad as he may seem. On page 62 of The End, Ishmael utters the exact same words to the Baudelaires,3 referring to their discomfort with the customs of the island; these customs eventually bring about the islanders' apparent deaths. On the drive to Olaf's house, the children and Arthur Poe pass the Royal Gardens, described as "an enormous pile of dirt".4 In The Grim Grotto, the Baudelaires read that Jacques Snicket formerly investigated the arsonous destruction of these Gardens. Near the end of The Bad Beginning, Count Olaf traps Sunny inside of a birdcage. In The End, Olaf is trapped by the colonists of the island on the coastal shelf inside a large birdcage when his final scheme is foiled. Similarly, just as Mr. Poe comes to retrieve the children at Briny Beach after their parent's arsonous death in the beginning of The Bad Beginning, Poe comes to retrieve them from Briny Beach a second time in The Grim Grotto just before they burn down the Hotel Denouement, a fire which results in the death of almost every secondary character in the series. In addition, Snicket makes reference to an island which "has a law that forbids anyone from removing its fruit".5 In The End, the Baudelaires shipwreck on an island where removing the apples from its single fruit tree is a symbolic gesture of self-exile. Furthermore, Justice Strauss tells the Baudelaires she is involved in a case concerning "a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone's credit card".6 This may refer to the poisonous mushroom Medusoid Mycelium featured in many of the later books; while strictly a fungus, popular belief holds that mushrooms are plants.7 The final illustration in the book shows a snake curled around a lamppost, an allusion to the next book, The Reptile Room. Critical reception Publishers Weekly praised Snicket's prose, observing, "The author uses formal, Latinate language and intrusive commentary to hilarious effect, even for readers unfamiliar with the literary conventions he parodies."8 The review went on to laud Helquist for his "exquisitely detailed" and "elegantly designed" artwork.8 The trade publication Library Journal praised both Snicket's narrative and prose: "While the misfortunes hover on the edge of being ridiculous, Snicket's energetic blend of humor, dramatic irony, and literary flair makes it all perfectly believable."9 Kirkus Reviews noted the uncomfortably macabre tone of the novel, warning that because "the Baudelaire children are truly sympathetic characters", the novel is "not for the squeamish".10 Special Editions ''The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition'' The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition (ISBN 0-06-051828-6) was published by HarperCollins on September 23, 2003. In addition to a box, new cover, and additional illustrations, this edition contains a fourteenth chapter filled with author's notes, many of which foreshadow later events in the series or provide excessive detailed information about the events in The Bad Beginning itself. ''The Bad Beginning; or, Orphans! ''The Bad Beginning: or, Orphans! is a paperback edition of The Bad Beginning designed to mimic Victorian penny dreadfuls.1112 It was released on May 8, 2007.12 The book features a new full-color cover, seven new illustrations, and the first part of a serial supplement entitled The Cornucopian Cavalcade, which in this edition includes the first of 13-part comic entitled The Spoily Brats along with a page of Victorian-era false advertisements, both produced by Michael Kupperman; an advice column written by Lemony Snicket along with a page listing every entry in A Series of Unfortunate Events (some of which are fictional); the first part of a story entitled Q: A Psychic Pstory of the Psupernatural by Stephen Leacock;1314 and a guide by Morley Adams on paper folding. Other special editions Two more editions of The Bad Beginning were published by Egmont Publishing on October 1, 2003—''The Bad Beginning: Special Edition'' (ISBN 1-4052-0725-6) and The Bad Beginning: Limited Edition (ISBN 1-4052-0726-4). They come in a larger format and contain three plates of color artwork that are redrawn from the original edition of the book and two plates of new color artwork. The Limited Edition is bound in leather and contained within a box, similar to the Rare Edition, and each copy was signed by Daniel Handler. Contrary to the description on the UnfortunateEvents.com website,15 they do not contain any endnotes (as the Rare Edition does). Audio Book Two audio book versions of this novel were released. The first version was released in September, 2003. It was read by Tim Curry and featured Daniel Handler, under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket, who read a portion entitled "A Conversation Between the Author and Leonard S. Marcus." The second version was released in October, 2004, after the release of the movie A Series of Unfortunate Events. This multi-voice cast audio book was narrated by Tim Curry and featured Jim Carrey, Meryl Streep, and Jude Law. This version also included sound effects and a soundtrack. The Bad Beginning was an Audie Awards finalist for Children's Titles for Ages 8+, 200516, and a Grammy Award Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, 200517. Cover images Category:books